![]() ![]() Though it was headless, its torso, he wrote, seemed to glow “like a lamp” it “burst like a star.” Its light carried a message, an answer to the questions with which Kappus had been grappling-the kinds of questions that anyone facing an unknown future must confront. ![]() Five years after responding to Kappus for the first time, Rilke found himself contemplating a marble sculpture of a Greek youth that he had seen in the Louvre. Letters summon us in this way so too can art. The invitation is both estranging and thrilling: Could you become the person whose name you read there? Even before you’ve opened the envelope, your identity has been refracted through someone else’s. To hold a letter addressed to you and see your own name in another’s hand is to feel an unsettling kind of pleasure. Kappus wanted to know if his own poems were any good he wanted to know what to write and how to be. “The envelope,” he later wrote, “bore a blue seal and a Paris postmark, weighed heavy in my hand, and presented the same clear, beautiful, confident handwriting on the envelope as the letter itself had from first line to last.” The confidence that Kappus saw in the hand of his correspondent offered an inverse image of the self-doubt that had led him, months earlier, to write to that man-the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. ![]() In February, 1903, a nineteen-year-old Austrian military cadet named Franz Xaver Kappus received a letter whose contents, he hoped, would teach him how to live. ![]()
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![]() ![]() The stories and legends surrounding the decrepit property are countless and contradictory, but one thing is clear: there are people willing to pay a great deal to determine the legal ownership of the house. But “teen” is a limited time offer, and when her friends start looking for adult professions, it’s up to Harlowe to find them one last case so that they can go out in a blaze of glory. Shipped off to live with her paternal grandparents after a mysterious cult killed her mother and father, she has grown up chasing the question behind the curve, becoming part of a tight-knit teen detective agency. Nature remembers deviation nature does not forgive.įor Harlowe Upton-Jones, life has never been a straight line. The natural world is a place of curves and softened edges, of gentle mists and welcoming spirals. This in no way affects my opinions, which are my own. ![]() ![]() The fates, and the publisher, smiled upon me and granted me access to an eARC of said novella, and I couldn’t be more delighted.ĭisclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for review purposes. So when Mira Grant announced that her latest Subterranean Press novella was her first dip into actual Lovecraft territory, I might have squealed a little inside. ![]() I’m fond of Lovecraftian fiction, as you can see from my thoughts on Ruthanna Emrys’s fiction here and here. ![]() 5/12/2023 0 Comments The dracula tape![]() ![]() The one point of view we never heard in the novel was Dracula’s own. Saberhagen’s approach works well, since Dracula is an epistolary novel told from several points of view. It turns out that Arthur and Janet Harker are descendants of Jonathan and Mina Harker of Stoker’s novel and Dracula is on a mission which will be revealed at the end of the novel. ![]() He relates the events of Bram Stoker’s novel from his point of view. On the tape within, is the voice of a man purporting to be Count Dracula. Arthur Harker and his wife Janet arrive in a hospital after their car dies on a remote road. Fortunately, Fred’s wife, Joan Saberhagen, has made certain that The Dracula Tape is still available in ebook and audio formats, so I was finally able to pick up a copy and dive into a book I’d long meant to read. Unfortunately, by the time I actually read Dracula in the mid-1990s, Saberhagen’s novel had fallen off my radar. However, in 1986, I hadn’t yet read the original Dracula and I thought it would be more enjoyable if I had some background. ![]() ![]() After I’d read and enjoyed The Frankenstein Papers, I’d always meant to seek out a copy of The Dracula Tape. It occurred to me that was a serious omission. Recently, a friend asked if I’d ever read Saberhagen’s 1975 novel, The Dracula Tape. ![]() 5/12/2023 0 Comments Smile sisters books![]() What follows is a long and frustrating journey with on-again, off-again braces, surgery, embarrassing headgear and even a retainer with fake teeth attached.įrom award-winning graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier comes a new story about family, friendship and hope. Raina just wanted to be a normal girl, but one night after Girl Scouts she trips and falls severely injuring her two front teeth. And while she would totally try out for her middle school's production of Moon Over Mississippi, she's a terrible singer. Raina Telgemeier, the author of the award-winning SMILE, brings us her next full-color graphic novel. Amara is cute, but she's also a cranky, grouchy baby, and mostly prefers to play by herself. But once Amara is born, things aren't quite how she expected them to be. ![]() The companion to Raina Telgemeier's #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling and Eisner Award-winning graphic memoir, SMILE. ![]() Please Note That The Following Individual Books As Per Original ISBN and Cover Image In this Listing shall be Dispatched Collectively: ![]() 5/11/2023 0 Comments Death note book volume 1![]() Luckily Light's father is the head of the Japanese National Police Agency and leaves vital information about the case lying around the house. ![]() Light tests the boundaries of the Death Note's powers as L and the police begin to close in. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal.or his life? But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. ![]() Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects-and he's bored out of his mind. When Light Yagami finds a notebook giving him power over death, will he use it for good-or evil? ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() You might have been fired from the leadership position you’d long to obtain. Maybe your wife left you and you’re getting a divorce. You may think your loss is the worst thing to happen in your life. Ones he wouldn’t have had if his parents had lived and he didn’t go to live with his uncle. Through his loss, Lewis discovered new opportunities. He was going to live with his uncle because his parents had passed away. ![]() The House With A Clock In Its Walls starts with Lewis being shipped to his Uncle Jonathan. ![]() While I think you’ll enjoy The House With A Clock In Its Walls for the fun story, I think you’ll also discover plenty of leadership lessons in The House With A Clock In Its Walls.Ĭaution: The House With A Clock In Its Walls spoilers below Quotes And Leadership Lessons From The House With A Clock In Its Walls 1. The house could be considered a house of horrors if it were not a good house. They move and change and do strange things. The furniture and other pieces in the home are magical. His uncle is a warlock! There’s also something weird about the house he’s about to live in. There, he discovers the truth about his kimono wearing uncle. He’s sent to live with his Uncle Jonathan. Even worse than the steampunk style glasses he wears throughout most of the movie, he’s orphaned through a tragic car accident which kills both of his parents. Night At The Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again | Official Trailer | Disney+ ![]() ![]() She discovered that her father, who left the family after Joe’s death, wasn’t as bad as she perceived him to be. Anna discovers that Joe wasn’t as great as she perceived him to be. Her best friend Natalie gets her a job waitressing where she meets Mateo and soon a relationship blossoms.īassett’s debut novel, Words and Their Meanings, takes us through the summer. ![]() They force her to ‘act normal’ for the summer and get a summer job or they will send her to a special school that deals with her abnormal behavior. Her seven year old sister Bea acts out differently…she hides in places in which she can’t be found, except Anna can find her.Īnna’s behavior is causing concern for her parents. She also writes lines from Patti Smith songs on her arm every day. ![]() Since Joe’s death, Anna’s been practicing ‘coffin yoga’ where she lies on her bed pretending she was dead. Her Gramps, her maternal grandfather, seems to be the one holding the family together. Anna blames herself for Joe’s death, which also caused her parents to split up and get divorced. He was her best friend and they told each other everything. He was living in their house and her father acted more like a father to Joe than a brother. ![]() Joe was really her uncle, her dad’s brother, but since he was only a few years older than Anna, he was more like a brother. It is June and the one year deadaversary of Anna’s bruncle Joe. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But, even after all the destruction and loss, there is a sense of hope, there are still good people that make life worthwhile. While one brother cares for a litter of puppies the rest of the family are preparing for hurricane Katrina, and one thing after another goes wrong, while Esch comes to terms with her condition. The way she talks about sex: ".(I)held him the way I'd embraced those boys I'd fucked because it was easier to let them get what they wanted instead of denying them, instead of making them see me." Nobody ever instilled into Esch that she has value, that she is worth protecting, that she can have a future of her own. Her mother died in childbirth when the youngest brother was born, father is drunk and his parenting seems to involve little else than providing a roof over the childrens head and food (instant noodles) in their bellies. In Salvage the Bones we meet Esch, a 14 year old pregnant girl. Even though the lives described are so far removed from my own reality they still feel close because of their intense humanity. I love the way she treats her characters there are no black and white angels and villains, almost all people have some redeeming traits or circumstances that softens your judgement. ![]() Since I was completely blown away by Sing, Unburied, Sing, I jumped to the opportunity to read this previous novel by Jesmyn Ward. ![]() 5/11/2023 0 Comments The hellbound heart a novel![]() ![]() ![]() His writing is not beholden to genre his fantasy titles ( Imagica, Weaveworld, Abarat, etc.) perform as well-if not better than his horror. More than just a prominent author, Barker earns his living as a screenwriter, director, playwright, and visual artist who has found success in every avenue. BEHIND THE PENĬlive Barker was born in Liverpool five years before Lennon and McCartney would climb on stage together. In a novella that blends the concepts of pleasure and pain, there is no shortage of opportunities for Barker to crawl into your eyes-or ears if that’s how you choose to invite him-and track in the mud of his delightfully demented mind. ![]() Then there’s Clive Barker-often credited with kickstarting the splatterpunk movement-doing his best to make your stomach turn and your skin crawl. ![]() Authors who astound with their brilliance. Those who are able to create such beauty and wonder in words that a reader’s life is forever changed. By Christopher O’Halloran are authors who write to change the world. ![]() ![]() ![]() The book mostly focuses on why it’s hard to align software with human values.Ĭhristian portrays this as mostly an old problem, whose importance is increasing. And – for today at least – the humans have lost the game. It’s hard to tell whether he has an opinion on how serious a threat unaligned AI will be – presumably it’s serious enough to write a book about?Ĭould the threat be more serious than that implies? Christian notes, without indicating his own opinion, that some people think so:Ī growing chorus within the AI community … believes, if we are not sufficiently careful, the this is literally how the world will end. Most of the book carefully avoids alarmist or emotional tones. Yet he organizes his discussion of near-term risks in ways that don’t pander to near-sighted concerns, and which nudge readers in the direction of wondering whether today’s mistakes represent the tip of an iceberg. ![]() Most writers with this focus miss the scale of catastrophe that could result from AIs that are smart enough to subjugate us.Ĭhristian mostly writes about problems that are visible in existing AIs. I was initially skeptical of Christian’s focus on problems with AI as it exists today. Book review: The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values, by Brian Christian. ![]() |